Pre-sort mailers typically perform automated processing of mail pieces for delivery to a customer. These mailers receive mail in batches from customers which they combine and sort in order to obtain postal discounts. Letter shops create mail and combine mail created for different customers using sorting machines in a manner similar to presort mailers. Both will be referred to as “pre-sorters” in the discussion below. Sorting machines used by pre-sorters are similar to those used at the USPS, namely DBCS and MLOCR machines. These businesses provide a service to their customers by processing items according to standard USPS rules for automated mail handling. This processing in turn reduces the postage rate charged to the customer.
Kiani et al. U.S. Patent Publication 20060080266, Apr. 13, 2006, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, describes a system and method for the automatic detection of items as originating from a specific source, e.g. client or customer, identifying specific characteristics of the items, comparing these characteristics to a database of sets of such characteristics identified with or more sources, and providing an output of items that match the characteristics. In one embodiment, a mailer detection and manifest system detects mail pieces that were sent by specific mailers using mail piece characteristics that are unique to the mail pieces of each mailer's job within a mixed mailer mail stream. This is preferably accomplished in real-time or near real-time while sorting the mail pieces after the mailer's specific mail piece characteristics have been determined. The process is used by presorters that receive mail and presort it into batches before sending it to the USPS in order to obtain postage discounts based of the level to which the mail has been presorted.
Presorters commonly apply a special seven character automark code to each mail piece in order to facilitate the sorting process. As described in the Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) of the U.S. Postal Service, Section 5.3.2, the first character of the automark corresponds to a code for the month that the directory of recipient addresses used by the presorter was generated. The next three characters identify the “MASS” machine ID, “MASS” referencing the USPS's program for certification of presort systems. The fifth character is vendor defined, and has in one case been used in the past for the OCR used to obtain the bar code result.
At the time that the automark code is applied, the last two (sixth and seventh) digits of the code identify the proper postage related to the customer that submitted the mail piece. The last two characters of the automark on a mail piece are as follows: P1=Permit 1-ounce; P2=Permit 2-ounce; P3=Permit 3-ounce; P4=Permit 4-ounce; M3=Metered at the 3-Digit rate; M5=Metered at the 5-Digit rate; MA=Metered at the AADC rate; MM=Metered at the Mixed AADC rate; MILITARY PERSONNEL=Metered at the Basic rate; S1=Precanceled Stamp Rate 1; S2=Precanceled Stamp Rate 2; S3=Precanceled Stamp Rate 3. During subsequent sorting of the automarked mail piece at the presorter, the automark code will be read and used, among other things, to determine the total postage paid for a given batch of presorted mail.
It is common that a presorter will have multiple locations, and that the mail will be initially presorted at one location, then shipped elsewhere for presorting with other presort mail calculated to yield a greater postage discount when delivered to the USPS. For this purpose, automark code needs to be read at the remote location, but the read rate of such dot matrix automark codes is often poor. The present invention relates to a method for improving the readability of the automark code so that accurate tracking of total postage for a batch of presorted mail can be realized.